


It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)

by samandbucky



Series: Clint Barton Birthday Bingo Bash [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Balloons, Birthday, Birthday Fluff, Fluff, Precious Peter Parker, Surprise Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samandbucky/pseuds/samandbucky
Summary: Clint absolutely hates celebrating his birthday, and all of the Avengers know this, so they don't celebrate his birthday, until Peter comes along and discovers Clint's birthday issues. He's determined to change Clint's opinions on birthdays.
Series: Clint Barton Birthday Bingo Bash [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808161
Kudos: 17





	It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)

**Author's Note:**

> Square Fill: Balloons

It’s known around the Avengers group that Clint doesn’t celebrate his birthday. They don’t know why, although there’ve been quite a few legitimate guesses thrown around the group, but they don’t question it, even though they all desperately want to celebrate their favorite birdbrain.

Natasha is the only one who really knows why, and she doesn’t say a word about it, as a promise to Clint.

But, now Peter is a part of the Avengers. After the events of Civil War, and Tony mentoring him, and getting to know the rest of the Avengers, Peter’s earned his spot in the superhero group.

“Hey! How come nobody told me that Clint’s birthday is this weekend?” Peter asks one day, walking into the kitchen, with his phone in his hand. He looks up, and he frowns when he sees everyone frozen, glancing at each other nervously. “What? Why are you all looking like that?”

Tony sighs. “Listen, kid… there’s a lot you still don’t know,”

“We don’t celebrate Clint’s birthday around here,” Steve adds. “It’s a long, and complicated story.”

Peter’s frown deepens. “What? That’s ridiculous. Everybody’s birthday should be celebrated!”

“Not Clint’s,” Natasha speaks up as well, who’s sitting on the kitchen counter with her legs crossed. “But, like Tony said earlier, there’s a lot you don’t know about some of us still. One thing we don’t mention or bring up around here, is Clint’s birthday.”

“Well, why not?” Peter asks, placing his phone on the kitchen island, suddenly interested.

“Nat, you wanna take this one?” Steve asks, turning to look at Natasha.

Natasha looks over at Steve, and sighs. “You know I can’t say much,” she says. “It’s not my story to tell.” Then, she looks back over at Peter. “Long story short, Clint didn’t have the greatest childhood, birthdays were never fun for him when he was a child, so he stopped celebrating them altogether.”

“Maybe we can change that for him,” Peter says. “Everybody deserves to be loved on their birthday.”

“And, how exactly are you planning on doing this without Clint knowing that you’re planning a surprise?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows as he leans against the kitchen island. “He does live here, you know?”

Peter bites his lip slightly as he thinks, and then looks over at Natasha. “You and Clint are friends, right?”

Natasha snorts. “I’d like to think so, yes. Why? What are you thinking, Spidey?”

“I need you to keep Clint distracted and out of the tower as much as you can over the next few days, so we can plan something without Clint being suspicious. Can’t you go on like, a mission or something?”

“We’ve got no missions coming up as far as I know. But, I’ll be able to keep Clint out,” Natasha says. “This is perfect. Clint owes me a day of shopping anyways.” She grins when the boys give her a rather confused look. “We get bored on missions. Just don’t ask any questions.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Tony mumbles, shaking his head.

Peter gets straight to work on planning Clint’s surprise birthday party. He already knows for a fact that Clint wouldn’t like a massive birthday party, because he hates the spotlight on him, so Peter only invites people around the Avengers circle, and some extra people Natasha tells him about. It’s a small party, which should be just perfect for Clint. At least, that’s what Peter hopes.

Peter wants to do something nice for Clint, not make him unhappy or uncomfortable.

“Hey kid. How’s party planning going?” Tony asks when Peter walks into his lab one day.

“It’s going,” Peter says. “I’ve sent out invitations. Do you think people will actually come to this party?”

“Kid, people have been wanting to celebrate Clint’s birthday for many years now, but he’s so closed off, that there was no possible way. Of course people are going to come,” Tony assures him. “Don’t worry. Now, what’s next on your list? Need any help?”

“I need a theme,” Peter says, pulling out his notebook and going to his party pages.

“Easy. Clint loves arrows, I mean that much is obvious, but I also know that his favorite color is purple. Use those two somehow when coming up with your party theme,” Tony says, and laughs when he sees the confused look on Peter’s face. “Get streamers and balloons that are purple, black and white.”

“Pepper says you’re terrible at event planning,” Peter raises his eyebrows curiously at Tony.

Tony snorts in response. “Of course Pep would say that. I’m not _terrible_ at planning for events, per say. I just pretend to be so I don’t have to do any work,” the genius explains, grinning at the younger boy.

“Yeah, okay. Now that makes more sense,” Peter says, before jotting down ideas in his notebook.

Tony suggests that Peter gets more cupcakes rather than cake, though maybe to have a cake for those who don’t like cupcakes. Peter decides on chocolate cupcakes as the flavor, because you simply cannot go wrong with chocolate. _Everybody_ loves chocolate. Peter then chooses pizza as the main dinner dish, and of course you have to have ice-cream. You can’t have cake without ice-cream!

“Here,” Tony says, handing Peter a card.

“What’s this?” Peter asks, blinking at the card, before looking up at Tony.

“What do you mean? It’s a credit card. I know you don’t have enough money on your own to plan this, so take that. Don’t give me that look-” Tony says when he sees the frown on Peter’s face. “We both want Clint to have a good birthday this year, and I wanna help. So, take that card, and spend as much as you need to to make it perfect. This is only for Clint’s birthday. Understood?” Tony warns as he looks at Peter.

Peter nods quickly. “Of course. Thank you so much, Mr. Stark!”

Tony rolls his eyes at Peter calling him ‘ _Mr. Stark_ ’ again. “What did we say about calling me Mr. Stark?”

Peter blushes. “Oh. S- Sorry, Mr. - uh, T - Tony. I forgot. It just feels weird calling you Tony when you’re, no offense, so much older than I am,” he says.

“I’ll let that slide,” Tony chuckles. “Besides, we’ve known each other long enough that you don’t need to keep calling me Mr. Stark. Besides, calling me that makes me feel really old. So, please don’t.”

Peter rolls his eyes at that. “Sure, I’ll remember that next time, Tony,” he says, grinning when Tony glares at him. “Anyways… I’ve got a birthday party to finish planning. Bye!”

Tony chuckles as he watches Peter skip happily out of his lab. “That kid will be the death of me,”

\----

Peter spends the next few days planning the surprise birthday party for Clint. The other Avengers help whenever he needs it, like when he has a question about Clint, because despite knowing Clint and the rest of the Avengers, he’s ashamed to say that he really doesn’t know much personally about his friends.

On the day of the party, Natasha successfully drags Clint out of the apartment, bright and early, so that Peter can start getting everything ready for the party. Pepper and a few others are there to help him, because Peter has never planned a birthday party before, and he knows he’ll need some help.

“I can’t believe we’ve been out _all day_ ,” Clint complains as he and Natasha walk up to the tower, their arms are filled with many shopping bags. Natasha definitely did not hold back when it came to shopping, especially since she knew Peter would still need a lot of time to prepare for the birthday party.

“Well, maybe next time you’ll learn your lesson about betting against me,” Natasha replies, smiling.

Clint scoffs, and rolls his eyes. “I'm not afraid of you,” he grumbles. “I’ll win the next bet. Just watch!”

Natasha snorts at Clint’s response. “You keep telling yourself that,”

Clint sighs in relief once they finally walk into the lobby of Avengers tower. “Thank God we’re home finally. I’m exhausted, and my arms-” he immediately stops when he spots the purple and white balloons at the check-in desk. “Nat.” Clint turns and glares at the redhead. “What’s going on?”

“Whatever do you mean, Clint?” Natasha asks in her most innocent sounding voice.

“Cut the bullshit. Those are balloons, and balloons only mean one thing. I thought we made it very clear that we don’t celebrate my birthday. It’s not something that I need in my life,”Clint snaps.

Natasha rolls her eyes at Clint’s serious tone. “Relax, Clint. They’re just balloons. Maybe some of Stark’s employees just wanted to decorate the lobby or something. I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with your birthday,” she says, leading the way over to the elevator.

“Really?” Clint asks, and Natasha knows he isn’t buying her response for a second. “You don’t find it a little suspicious that the balloons are purple? Which happens to be my favorite color?”

Natasha pulls a face, pretending to question Clint’s question. “Nope,” she says. “Now, come on.”

Clint sighs, and then he walks into the elevator, and leans against the elevator wall, relaxing a bit. “Fuck, I’m starving. Do you think the others will be down for pizza tonight for dinner?”

Natasha snorts at that, knowing Peter plans to have pizza at the party for dinner. “I’m sure that’ll be fine,”

“Good, because I really don’t want anything else right now,” Clint says.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of your hunger problems once we get my bags into my room,” Natasha says.

“You know it’s my birthday, and I didn’t spend an ounce of money,” Clint points out. “These are all yours.”

“And?” Natasha replies, raising her eyebrows. “You could have bought something if you wanted to. Nobody was stopping you.” She looks over when the elevator finally opens, and the two of them step out. The lights are dim, and Natasha can only assume that everybody is hiding at this point.

“Tasha, my arms hurt,” Clint complains. He jumps when the light suddenly brightens, and a bunch of people jump out from hiding, shouting ‘ _Surprise_!” at him. Clint instantly drops the bags on his arms onto the floor as he looks around. The room is decorated in purple with hints of white and black. It’s simple, there are more balloons and streams placed randomly. There’s food, and Clint can’t even be mad because he sees pizza on the table, and he’s _starving_.

“Hey, watch what you’re dropping over there, Barton!” Natasha warns.

“I fucking knew it,” Clint hisses, shoving Natasha. “You told me there wasn’t anything suspicious going on!”

“And you actually believed her?” Tony asks from the kitchen, raising his eyebrows at Clint.

Clint looks over at Tony and glares at him. “Bastard. This was all your doing, wasn’t it?” He asks, crossing his arms against his chest, not caring that he’s acting like a child at this moment. It’s his party after all, and he’ll cry if he damn well pleases. Clint hates surprises, especially birthday surprises.

Tony grins. “No, actually. Peter planned the whole thing,” he says, placing his hand on Peter’s shoulder.

Clint’s face instantly softens, and he looks over at Peter, who’s smiling shyly. “You did this?”

“Well… yeah,” Peter replies, nodding his head. “Nobody told me that your birthday was coming up, and then they explained to me that you didn’t celebrate your birthday because of your crappy childhood, and _then_ I thought maybe we could change your mind if we gave you a nice birthday.”

Clint sighs, and then he runs a hand through his hair, and then glances around the room, recognizing many of his friends, whether they’re Avenger friends or others. “Dammit. How can I be mad at that?” Then, Lucky comes running up to him out of nowhere, and _that_ instantly brings a smile to his face, because he hasn’t seen his shared dog in months. “Lucky!” He bends down to pet him.

Kate, Clint’s best friends other than Natasha, quickly runs up, and sighs as she watches Lucky smother Clint with kisses. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t hold him back anymore,” she says.

Natasha rolls her eyes, though a smile remains on her face. “Of course it’s the dog who gets to him,”

Peter grins as he watches Clint, and then he looks over at Tony. “So, do you think it worked?”

“Yeah, kid,” Tony chuckles, looking back at Peter. “I think it worked. You did a good job.”


End file.
